Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today it has expanded its award-winning storage solution line with the new Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini bus powered portable hardware RAID storage solution. Featuring 14 pre-configured models with hardware RAID-1 “mirrored” redundancy for “live activity” data protection; or RAID-0 “stripe” for maximum data transfer speed, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini contains two 2.5" hard drives or OWC Mercury SSDs for up to 2.0TB of capacity, a “Quad Interface” of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, & eSATA connections for Plug and Play data transfer speeds up to 300 MB/s with Mac and PC computers.

Measuring the approximate size of a portable CD player - 5.6" (D) x 6.1" (W) x 1.1" (H) - the bus powered (no AC adapter needed) Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini’s unique flat side by side two drive design enables it to fit into laptop, photography, and other gear carrying bags easily and without adding any bulk. With 14 models offering two 2.5" SATA hard drives with up to 2.0TB of capacity or two award-winning OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs with up to 800GB of capacity, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini delivers big storage performance in an under two pound, fanless solution.

Convenient Yet Flexible Hardware RAID Settings
The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini comes conveniently factory set for Plug and Play use in one of two RAID levels: RAID-1 for writing the same information in real-time to two matched 2.5" SATA drives up to 1.0TB for “live activity” data redundancy; or RAID-0 for “striping” data up to 2.0 TB across both drives for the highest speed backup. Users that desire a change to either RAID level setting, including the SPAN option, can do easily via switch selectors.

Compatible With New And Legacy Macs And PCs
With a “Quad Interface” of two FireWire 800, one FireWire 400, one USB 2.0, and one eSATA ports and high quality connecting cables included, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini doesn’t require any complicated set-up and is ready for Plug and Play use with legacy Macs, the latest 2010 Mac models, and PCs. It provides data transfer speeds up to 300 MB/s and can be moved between different systems utilizing its supported interfaces with complete interoperability for maximum data backup performance and flexibility.

The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini is available immediately from OWC in 14 pre-configured hard drive and Solid State Drive (SSD) models with up to 2.0TB of storage capacity starting at $179.99 MSRP from here and are compatible with Apple OS 8.6 and later including all versions of Apple OS X and Windows 98SE or later operating systems. Solutions come ready for Plug and Play ease of use with interface connecting cables, a $100 retail value disk utility software bundle, and an industry leading three year complete solution warranty.

The OWC enclosures are really nice and well made in comparison to just about every other I have ever seen. I own 2 of them that are similar to this but for 3.5" drives. You can buy a Firewire 800 card for under $50 if you want to use it. I thought just about every motherboard had eSATA these days but maybe it's only the higher end ones.

Exactly they can put 3 fire wire ports (granted it has to have 2 fire wire 800 slots because firewire requires you to daisy chain devices) but not 1 USB 3 slot.:shadedshu

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Firewire doesn't require daisy chaining, it just supports it. I wish more USB devices did. And you are right, USB3 would make this product perfect. Unfortunately, I doubt there are any chipsets that support both USB 3 and FW800 out there yet.